La chatte à deux têtes

This film follows the goings on of porn theater attendees in Paris. While the interaction between the characters is touching, and their openness with one another seems genuine, the viewer cannot help but feel unnerved by the lack of sexual scruples of the audience members.

Simultaneously, the director puts us in the position of voyeurs, but occasionally switches perspectives to make us think we are in the audience with the actors. This poking at the fourth wall helps make one wonder about what is going on in the theater in which we are sitting. Seeing this movie in your living room may spoil the effect.

Overall, this movie was very human, very touching, but very sad. There is a bit of male nudity/male on male sex, so this movie is not for the stodgy, prudish, repressed, or homophobic.

This film runs on for much too long and is not for the faint of heart. I'm not referring to some of the sexual acts between the men but the half naked or fully naked transvestites who caused my skin to creep. The goings on at this theatre become repetitive and despite some touches about contemporary French society, it remains a movie that doesn't really have a point. "Weird things can happen in a porno theatre"; I think we already knew that. This was hardly an expose of "Peyton Place" type proportions. The lives of the three people talking outside the theatre was interesting but even those characters really weren't developed enough and basically boiled down to an older man lusting after a young straight guy. If you overlook this film, trust me, you'll lead a long and happy life and not feel you've missed anything.

First, for those thinking this is sexually graphic (The Parents guide falsely indicates) it is not. What there is, is simulated. There are porn movies playing on the screen but whenever the screen is actually shown, the scenes are conveniently tame. The sound (no pictures) supposed to be coming from the screen sound graphic. The characters are only a little interesting. Where this movie fails is, dragging the most mundane thing out. Watching a patron pay for their ticket, walking in & taking their seat, can take a few minutes. Too much of the mundane is dragged out. Guess it was easier than writing more of the script. I paused the movie, thinking it must be almost over but realized I was only about a third in! Should have just stopped. I recommend not even starting.

'La Chatte à deux têtes' (PORN THEATER) is a somber study of a sector of life few know, an aspect of human sexuality that didn't make it into the Kinsey Report, a part of the underbelly of city life most would rather not accept existed. Does that mean it should not be examined, should not provide the impetus for an art film? Writer/director and actor Jacques Nolot thinks otherwise. In this dark little film we are invited into the inner sanctum of a dirty old movie house in Paris that shows only straight pornography for a clientele of men of various types: military men, straight men look for gay sex, married men in need of exploration of their senses, transvestites, old men for whom such places provide the only sexual outlet, and the regulars who spend their evenings in the dingy darkened atmosphere for anonymous sex.

The theater is a theater of life for these people, and the 'stage manager' is the sole female Italian ticket cashier (Vittoria Scognamiglio) who has seen every aspect of sexuality, embraced it, and therefore is wholly non-judgmental. She converses with her straight projectionist (Sébastien Viala) who is attracted to her on several levels, and with one of her regulars (Jacques Nolot), a man of fifty who is living with AIDS in a responsible way, but finds his only sexual outlet to be this theater scene. During the course of the film the cashier manages to discuss her open views of sexuality with these two men and the three of them seem headed for a communal experience.

This open view of human behavior is set with the background of the various acts within the theater. We watch transsexuals ply their wares, group encounters in bathrooms, and various odd approaches and rejections for gratification that in the end represent a group of men who find connection to each other as human beings far more difficult (?impossible?) than quick satisfaction in the dark. There is considerable frank acting out of encounters that are usually not seen on film and that may be more than the regular viewer can tolerate. But at least one director has the courage of Genet and Gide and Burroughs et al to tackle this subject matter in a wholly realistic way. The result is a film of social significance, even though it may not be for everyone. It is an art film, very well made, with a brave cast and an even braver writer and director. To not see it is to miss some important messages about human sexuality and about human needs too frequently dismissed as non-existent. In French with English subtitles. Grady Harp

I agree with the above comments that this movie is not for the faint of heart. Even having visited theaters like that myself, to see it on film is still something that'll raise your pulse.

I think what's more important here than the content or 'weakness' or 'unwatchability' of some of the characters, is the fact that we as an audience member have suddenly become voyeurs into an ordinary day in these people's lives. We see them pursuing friendships, searching for affirmation, seeking pleasure from an addiction, the joy of anonymity, etc.

I think one example we can use is when you're out in the woods and you lift an old log, or a rock and look underneath. You don't disturb, you don't change anything, you simply observe and put the rock back down. Whatever life is happening under the rock was there before your arrival, and will certainly keep moving after you put the rock back.

The characters that exist in this movie certainly exist in our daily lives; gay, bi, jocks, trannies, married men, whether you're in Paris, New York, Akron, St. Louis, Houston, wherever. I think it's an interesting glimpse into lives that we might not get to see otherwise. The subject matter may be a bit edgy, but we have semi-comparable films (not necessarily content-wise) here in the U.S that are simply glimpes into lives.

I enjoy French movies. I think the French are more willing to challenge themselves through their cinema. If you can stomach it, take a look at any of Gaspar Noe's movies, especially "Irreversible," or "I Stand Alone." Or even, "In My Skin," directed by Marina de Van. Eye-openers for our American sensitivities.